https://medium.com/@philgarber/blog

1123blog

Thank You

Giving thanks is not something I’m very good at and I really don’t do it enough but rather I tend to stay in the immediacy of the things I am doing at the time, an attribute which some might consider to be selfish if not self-destructive.

Instead of giving thanks, I’m more likely to regret things I haven’t done, let slip through my fingers, fail to pursue or enjoy. I spend more time feeling regret rather than thanks when it is all so subjective and everyone probably has equal doses of regret and thanks in life and chooses which one to focus upon.

Part of me wants to be thankful for the many things I’ve had and done in my life and another part of me doesn’t want to get hung up on the past, good or bad, because it takes away from my energy at the time. I suppose there’s no harm in giving thanks, even if it is only occasionally.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been many, many people I am grateful to have met. That’s the important thing. It’s different than being grateful for having a home, enough food and drink, absent of any major health issues. Those are all very important but not in the truly grateful category because somehow you can survive without shelter, find enough food and water to survive. But lacking the human associations will kill you and having them will fertilize your world and make it worth living in.

Grateful is knowing my wife, my son, my daughter and knowing that I love them, having that gift of loving someone and feeling it returned. That is pretty amazing and for sure is in the giving thanks column of life.

I am grateful for good fortune, for being in the right place at the right time because it is all about timing and kismet and pure luck. And I have had plenty of good luck starting with a woman who has stuck with me through the stench of the troubles; with a son who makes me proud of his tenacity, intelligence and sensitivity; with a daughter who wakes up against the odds every day and finds her way through the forest, dangerous and dark it may often be. And I am grateful that I was picked to have such wonderful people grace my life.

Smiling is so important to getting through the day and thinking about what I have to feel grateful for makes me smile. Another reason to be grateful, although purely selfish but still very rewarding. I could wonder who is grateful for knowing me but it seems like a waste or air and precious time. If I’ve made people happy, that’s great; if not, so what, just move on. I would like to think I’ve given more than a few people reason to be grateful at having crossed my path.

There is also being grateful for the things that haven’t happened, like being a Jew in Nazi Germany or drowning or choking on a piece of meat or losing a hand in an industrial accident or going blind. But why waste time on these thoughts as they don’t make me feel any better but just sad for those who have not escaped such calamities. And focusing on what didn’t happen just steals the oxygen out of my room.

And then there is being grateful for being relatively healthy and relatively without pain. Yet that could change in a heartbeat and because of nothing in particular. Just breathing is something worth gratitude because many people can’t breath without pain or effort even though it is one of the most basic human events. Being able to walk without any kind of pain, being able to hear what people are saying and what birds are singing, being able to smell aromas in the kitchen and feel the warmth of the sun, all things that deserve gratitude, all things that can too easily be taken for granted until they are gone.

I do feel gratitude at not knowing my fate and just getting on with the business of my life without fearing it will end while it would be even worse to know when it will end, even though it will one day end.

And I am grateful that many, if not most, people also have reasons to give thanks and just knowing I live in a world where there is an abundance of thanks is worth the price of the ticket.